01/03/2021 | Secretary General of the Assembly
Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis begins today her mandate as Secretary General of the Parliamentary Assembly. The first woman to occupy this post since the Assembly's creation in 1949, she was elected by parliamentarians on 26 January for a 5-year term of office at the last PACE session held in...
26/02/2021 | Monitoring
“We are extremely concerned by recent developments in Armenia,” said PACE’s co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Armenia, Boriana Åberg (Sweden, EPP/CD) and Kimmo Kiljunen (Finland, SOC). “In particular, we found the statement issued yesterday by the office of the General Staff of the Armed...
24/02/2021 | Monitoring
The PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs for Georgia, Titus Corlatean (Romania, SOC) and Claude Kern (France, ALDE), have expressed their concern at developments in Tbilisi. “While no-one should be above the law, the police raid on the UNM Headquarters and the arrest of opposition leader Nika Melia...
12/02/2021 | Monitoring
The PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Turkey, Thomas Hammarberg (Sweden, SOC) and John Howell (United Kingdom, EC/DA), have welcomed yesterday’s return to parliament of MP Enis Berberoğlu, a member of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). “The protection of parliamentary...
09/02/2021 | Monitoring
The co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly for the monitoring of Georgia, Titus Corlatean (Romania, SOC) and Claude Kern (France, ALDE), have today expressed their deep concern at the illegal sentencing of Georgian citizen Zaza Gakheladze to twelve years imprisonment by a so-called court in...
05/02/2021 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The 2021 Council of Europe Museum Prize has been awarded to Gulag History Museum (Moscow, Russian Federation). The museum was selected by the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) meeting today. The Gulag History Museum documents mass repression and...
04/02/2021 | President
The German Federal Government’s Special Representative for the Presidency of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, State Minister Michael Roth, the President of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Rik Daems, and the Secretary General of the 47-nation Council of Europe...
04/02/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The PACE Sub-Committee on Public Health and Sustainable Development held a public hearing on Tuesday 9 February by videoconference on “Overcoming vaccine hesitancy: strategies for parliaments and parliamentarians”, as part of a report being prepared by Vladimir Kruglyi (Russian Federation, NR...
03/02/2021 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), General Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on media freedom and the protection of journalists, has today strongly condemned police brutality and judicial abuses against journalists reporting peaceful demonstrations in more...
03/02/2021 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sunna Ævarsdóttir (Iceland, SOC), PACE’s rapporteur on political prisoners in the Russian Federation, and Jacques Maire (France, ALDE), rapporteur on the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner, have today reacted to his sentencing to two years...
28/01/2021 | Session
“Freedom of expression is what distinguishes a democratic country from a dictatorship. In a healthy democracy there is freedom of speech. But the reverse is also true: freedom of speech is a prerequisite for that same democracy”, today said Bob De Brabandere (Belgium, EC/DA) opening a Current...
28/01/2021 | Session
PACE has ratified the credentials of the Russian parliamentary delegation by a large majority after they were challenged on substantive grounds on the opening day of the session – but has deplored a number of “negative tendencies” in the country with regard to democracy, the rule of law and human...